


Vernal Equinox

by Anarfea



Series: Shifting Seasons [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aphasia, Brain Damage, Break Up, Depression, Divorce, Eventual Happy Ending, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Reconciliation, Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:20:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26202571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarfea/pseuds/Anarfea
Summary: After their night together, Greg is ready to commit to Mycroft. But Mycroft isn’t sure he can be what Greg, still recovering from his brain injury, needs. Steph still loves Greg and wants to fight for him, but old habits die hard and she’s still subject to the same temptations. Can the three of them navigate their way to happiness as the seasons shift around them?
Relationships: Greg Lestrade/Greg Lestrade's Wife, Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade, Mycroft Holmes/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Shifting Seasons [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608547
Comments: 57
Kudos: 66





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back! This is the final work of the Shifting Seasons series. I hope you enjoy.

Greg wakes with a headache. That’s not unusual. He throws his arm over his head and blocks the sunlight from his eyes. The angle is wrong. He’s not in his bedroom. Last night floods back to him--miles of pale skin spattered with constellations of brown freckles. Mycroft. He’s in Mycroft’s bedroom. He sits up, looking for the man in question, but finds himself alone. That’s not so surprising. He knows Mycroft is an early riser. Greg springs out of the enormous, four poster bed, gets dressed in his clothes from yesterday, and makes his way downstairs.

He finds Mycroft in his study. He’s wearing a burgundy colored dressing gown, sitting in a huge wingback chair, staring at an even huger mahogany desk, head in his hands. He looks up when Greg enters the room, quickly dropping his hands to the table, like he’s been caught out.

“You okay?” Greg asks, even though Mycroft is clearly not okay.

Mycroft doesn’t reply.

Greg is surprised. He expected, well, not to find Mycroft in the kitchen making a fry up and whistling, but not… this. He thought they would bask in the afterglow a little. Share coffee and kisses in the morning. Instead, Mycroft looks like he’s been up all night. There are dark circles under his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Greg asks. “You worry…. Last night?” Greg doesn’t understand what’s changed between then and now. Mycroft had been so soft, so open, so vulnerable last night, and now he’s shut tight like a scallop, rimmed with a ring of wary eyes. Maybe Greg pushed him too hard. Persuaded Mycroft to have sex against his own better judgement.

“I’m sorry if I… Push you.”

Mycroft’s expression is blank. Unreadable.

“You… regret?”

Mycroft opens his mouth like he’s about to speak, then shuts it again.

“I’m sorry.” Greg says.

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

“You wish. We didn’t.”

“I acted against my better judgement. But that does not mean I did not consent.”

Greg’s heart beats faster. “Woah. I hope--”

“You did not pressure me into doing anything I didn’t want to do. I told myself that even if you were only sleeping with me to get back at her, it would be enough. But in the light of day, I find….”

Oh. Mycroft still thinks Greg isn’t serious. After everything. “Look,” he says. “I know you think. I don’t…. But… Not about Steph. I care. For you.”

Mycroft swallows.

“I don’t regret. At all. Want. You.”

Mycroft’s face is still guarded, but there’s hope beneath it. He wants to believe.

Greg walks around the desk, behind Mycroft’s chair, and kisses the top of his head. 

Mycroft flushes.

“C’mon. Breakfast.” Greg goes back to the sitting room with the fireplace where they sat up the night before, Mycroft slowly following him, and retraces Mycroft’s steps down the hall to where he imagines the kitchen is.

Mycroft’s kitchen is fucking depressing. The wallpaper is probably designer, but the foil-print grid gives the impression of decaying tile. The sinks and refrigerator are sterile stainless steel, not a fingerprint to be seen anywhere. It doesn’t look like anyone ever comes in this room, let alone cooks in it. Greg confirms this by taking a glance in the refrigerator, which is covered in take-out menus, but empty except for a bottle of brown sauce and a carton of cream.

“I’ll make coffee,” Mycroft says. He starts the French press dripping and opens a cabinet, takes out a carton of the same biscuits he served them last night. 

Greg nibbles a biscuit. It’s a little stale, but he’s hungry, so he finishes it and helps himself to another.

“If you want breakfast,” says Mycroft, “I’m afraid we’ll have to go out. Unless you’d prefer to order in.”

“In.” Greg says, gesturing to his soiled clothes. “Not dressed.”

Mycroft nods. “There’s a great little French patisserie I like.”

“Yum.”

Mycroft smiles.

“So. Breakfast. Then. Go home. Get stuff. Move here.”

Mycroft raises both eyebrows. “What?”

“Told you, Steph over. You. Now. Always.”

Mycroft pulls away and looks at him. “Greg,” his tone is careful. “Last night was…pleasurable. Despite my concerns. And I’d like to have more days and nights with you. But….”

“What?”

Mycroft drops his eyes, unwilling to meet Greg’s gaze. “You can’t move in here.”

Greg’s stomach drops. “I thought you care for me.”

“I do,” Mycroft grasps his hand. “I do, but I can’t....”

“What?”

“I’m not…”

“What?”

“I’m not like her.”

“Steph?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t want Steph.”

Mycroft swallows. “That may be, but you need… someone like her.”

“Why?”

“My work is very demanding.”

“Mine too.” Greg says instinctively, realizing moments later that actually, he doesn’t work anymore. Might not ever work again.

“I can’t drop everything to--to look after you.”

“Don’t need. Looking after.”

Mycroft’s brows furrow. “But you do, Greg, you do. If you want to leave her, I’ll help you find your own place. I can get you a live-in nurse, an aide to take you to therapy--”

“Don’t want that.”

Mycroft licks his lips. “You need support. And I can’t give it to you.”

“You can. I want.” He swallows around a lump in his throat. Fuck this goddamn aphasia. “Need. You. Wake up with you. Be with you. Can do.”

“I would like that too.” Mycroft pauses. “Eventually.”

Greg’s insides twist. “When ‘m better.”

“When we’ve known each other longer.”

“You don’t want me. I’m burden.”

Mycroft’s face hardens. “I did not call you that.”

“No. But you think. And you don’t… want it.”

“I can’t.”

“I love you!” Greg blurts.

Mycroft flinches.

Greg’s heart tumbles. “You don’t.”

Mycroft’s voice breaks. “I care for you.”

“Not enough,” Greg shakes his head. “If you loved… me. You’d let. Me stay.”

“I need time.”

“Time is just your way. Push me away. Let me down easy. Well it’s not easy.”

“Please.” Mycroft squeezes Greg’s hand.

“Fuck you.” Greg jerks it away. “Fuck you you fucking… fuck.”

“I’m sorry.”

Greg flings the remnants of his biscuit at Mycroft. It hits him square on the nose. 

Mycroft blinks. “Gregory--”

“Don’t. ‘Gregory’ me.” He snaps. “Don’t anything me. We’re done.”

Mycroft’s face crumples. “Greg--”

“Done!” he shouts. “Fuck! Done!”

He flees for the door, running, and trips over his feet in the stairwell, falling flat. That’s been happening sometimes. His right foot in particular doesn’t support him if he comes down on it a certain way.

Mycroft dashes towards him. “Greg!”

“Stay away,” Greg snarls.

Mycroft backs up, palms raised.

Greg picks up himself and his dignity and makes his way out the door, down the hallway. He stops in the foyer and grabs his coat. Deja vu overwhelms him as he opens the door. For a few minutes he stands in a flurry of snowflakes. Then he blinks them away, and closes the door behind him.

* * *

The smell of sizzling bacon hits him as soon as Greg walks in the door. Steph is cooking a full English, frying sausage, bacon, and black pudding in one skillet and mushrooms and tomatoes in another. He stands in the doorway, watching her. She removes the meat from the pan and arranges it on a plate she pulls out of the oven. Then she cracks two eggs into the grease. She does not look up. She arranges the tomato and mushrooms on the plate, adds beans from a pot on the hob and toast fresh from the toaster. She butters it. Finally, she slides the sunny side ups atop the bacon.

“I thought you might be hungry,” she says to the plate, and sets it on the counter in front of a bar stool.

“Steph,” he says, “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

Even if he didn’t have aphasia, Greg has no idea how he’d respond. He hates the way she cooks these elaborate meals and cleans like they have company coming even when it’s just the two of them, like she needs to put on a show.

“What?” She asks again. “I can’t make you breakfast?”

His headache worsens, pulsing behind his eyes. “Why not? Did he already make you breakfast?”

He purses his lips together for a long moment. “No.”

She looks up at him for the first time, eyes flashing. “Did you have sex with him?”

Greg meets her gaze. “Yes.”

She nods, like this is perfectly all right. “Eat, then, since you haven’t.”

He’s not doing this. Not playing this game. Eating passive aggressive, poison breakfast while she pretends everything is fine. “No. I just came. Stuff.”

“Oh.” Her face falls. Just for a second. Then the mask snaps back in place. “You’re moving in with him? Already?”

“No. Hotel. Then find…. place.”

She takes a deep breath. “Greg. Please. Don’t go.”

It startles him. She’s fighting for him. He’d thought Steph would be relieved, glad to not have to take care of a brain-damaged spaz like him anymore.

“I know you’re angry with me. And you have every right to be. But please. We’ve both made mistakes. We can move past them.” She fidgets with her apron. “If you want him, you can have him. It’s clear we both suck at monogamy. Maybe it’s better to just admit that and… try an open relationship.”

Greg imagines making such a proposal to Mycroft. Telling him that Steph was letting Greg have him. Mycroft Holmes. Someone’s ‘secondary.’ He chuckles. Then full on guffaws.

Steph wilts.

“Mycroft… wouldn’t share.”

She folds her arms. It looks like she’s hugging herself. “Okay. You’ve chosen him, then. I respect that.”

Yeah. He’d chosen him. And Mycroft had thrown that choice back in his face. “We’re not… together.”

Steph’s eyes widen. “Oh.” She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “Then…” she hesitates. “Stay. Please.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you.”

He’s sure Steph thinks she loves him. He’s equally sure what she thinks is love is just habit, combined with a healthy dose of guilt-induced obligation.

He shakes his head. “I’m a burden.”

“No. No, Greg.” She starts forward, reaches for him, then drops her hand to the side.

“I am.” Tears well in his eyes. “I’m a burden. And he. Doesn’t. Want.”

“Shhh.” She hugs him.

Greg stands stiff in her arms. He doesn’t understand. He just cheated on her and then got dumped and she’s trying to comfort him.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry Greg, I’m so sorry.”

The tears are streaming down his face, now. He’s shaking.

Steph squeezes him tighter. 

Finally, he lets go, sobs, and puts his arms around her. He doesn’t know if he still loves her, but she’s warm and familiar and he’s desperate for comfort.

She sways from side to side, rocking him in her arms. “Mycroft Holmes does not deserve you.” She kisses his shoulder. “I don’t deserve you either. But I love you. And I’m asking. Begging. For you to stay.”

Greg chokes out a sob. This is not what he wanted. But Mycroft is right. He needs. 


	2. Chapter 2

Steph is at the greengrocer shopping for vegetables. She selects a bunch of rainbow colored carrots and places them in her hand basket alongside celery, onions, and potatoes. She plans to make stew. It’s almost too warm for that, but she’s trying to make hearty, comforting meals to get some meat on Greg’s bones. He’s been losing weight. He doesn’t eat much of what she cooks. She’s responded by trying to make everything more appetizing. She picks out fresh rosemary and bay leaf and thyme, which smell heavenly, and then adds garlic and onion and the fancy whole tricolor peppercorns.

Greg spends all day in therapy, and since Steph’s taken leave from her job, she doesn’t have a lot to do other than go to the markets, cook, and clean the house. She crochets. She watches telly. But it’s not the same as having obligations. Her little job at the Refugee Council was never anything to write home about, but it filled her days, which now feel empty. She should go to the gym, but she hasn’t since the breakup with Darren. She doesn’t want to risk running into him. She should cancel her membership and find a new place, but she feels like she doesn’t have the energy to do those things even though she has the time. Dealing with Greg’s illness is exhausting, in an existential way. Some days she doesn’t know if she can go on.

Next stop is the butcher. She buys a rump roast and a few slices of bacon. The butcher lifts two slices off the scale, giving her three and only charging her for one. He winks as he does it. Steph knows she’s a reasonably attractive woman; she’s no stranger to being flirted with by strangers, but she’s starved for attention, and he isn’t half-bad looking, so she smiles at him. It makes her feel good. Feel seen. She’s not sure Greg sees her, anymore.

She walks home and sets the groceries on the counter, pulls her hair back and starts work on her stew. She chops the meat into cubes and sears it off in batches, occasionally pausing to add a splash of water. Next, she transfers the meat from the pan to a mixing bowl and makes a mirepoix with the celery, carrots and onions. She cooks these in the meat pan, adding flour to thicken the fond before deglazing the pan with wine. Finally, she pulls a quart jar of pre-made stock from the freezer and lets it dissolve. She adds her cubed meat and spices and covers her pan, leaving the heat on low while she chops the potatoes for later. Greg should be home in a few hours, and they can eat together. Or more likely, Greg will take a bowl into the living room and eat in front of the telly, watching football. 

Tears well in her eyes, blurring her vision. She cuts her thumb, not very deep, but enough to get blood in her potatoes and ruin them. She cries harder, and not from the pain in her thumb, which throbs dully as she sucks it between her teeth and tastes iron. Fuck. She drops the knife on the cutting board and goes into the bathroom, washes her hands, watching the blood swirl down the sink. She opens the medicine cabinet and pulls down the first-aid kit, finds some gauze and a finger cot for her thumb. She bandages herself, still sniffing. She wants Greg. She wishes it had been Greg who bound her hand, wants Greg to hold her and kiss the top of her head and tell her she’s being silly for crying over such a little bit of blood. But Greg isn’t here.

* * *

Greg comes home a few hours later. The stew is beautiful, filling the whole house with its enticing aroma. Greg doesn’t eat any of it, saying he bought a bacon sandwich on the way home. He doesn’t ask about her bandaged hand, or her day. Instead, he flops on the couch to watch a match. Steph isn’t paying the telly any attention, but Greg yells and screams at it, so she supposes Arsenal is losing.

Steph puts on rubber gloves to protect her thumb and washes the dishes. She cries again, tears running down her face and chin. She scours the pans, and the mixing bowl, stacking everything in the rack next to the sink. She’s too tired to dry.

“I have a headache,” she tells Greg. “I’m going to go have a lie down.”

Greg doesn’t look at her.

She trudges upstairs to the spare room. Her ammonite afghan is spread out over the bed. It was meant to be a symbol of her growth and ability to live a life independent of Greg. She doesn’t know what it means anymore, but at least it’s warm. She curls up beneath it, not bothering to get under the duvet and the sheets.

* * *

The next morning, Steph gets up and showers in the upstairs bathroom, careful to be quick and leave enough hot water in the boiler for Greg. She didn’t use to have to worry about that, before. Greg was always up and out the door by the time Steph was getting ready for work. But now that he doesn’t have speech therapy until ten, and he sleeps in until the last possible second, she has to make sure there’s water for him. Steph dries off, wraps her hair in a towel, and slips on her dressing gown. She heads downstairs and opens the bedroom door. Greg is laying on his stomach, head underneath the pillow.

“Morning,” she says. “Time to get up. You’ll be late.”

“Go away.”

“Come on, Greg. You aren’t a child.”

“Ugh.” He rolls over and lifts the pillow off his face. “Fuck. What time it?”

“Nine.”

“Five more minutes.”

“No. You need to get up now, or you won’t have time to shower.”

“Who cares?”

“I do. Greg, you’re becoming a slob.”

“You. Becoming nag.”

She presses her lips together. “Fine. Don’t shower, then.”

Steph goes out to the kitchen and packs Greg a lunch: a tupperware container of the stew she made yesterday, half a sandwich, an orange, and a banana. She used to drive Greg to therapy, crochet for two hours while he had his appointment, and eat lunch with him at the hospital before going home and letting Greg finish his physical therapy and take the tube home by himself. But Greg didn’t like it, said it made him feel like a child, so now he takes the tube both ways and eats lunch by himself. Steph didn’t say anything, but sometimes she really feels like Greg is her child. She always thought she wanted kids, but not like this.

He comes out to the kitchen, hair mussed, wearing the same shirt and joggers he’s been wearing for three days. She needs to steal them and run them through the wash. He picks up the insulated bag from the counter and tucks it under his arm.

“Bye, Greg,” she says, with forced cheer. “Have a good day at therapy.”

Greg doesn’t respond.

* * *

Steph goes out for a run. It’s what she’s been doing instead of going to the gym. Her feet pound the pavement; sweat beads at her forehead and the nape of her neck. She wanted Greg to come home. She did. And she knew it would be hard. So did Mycroft, apparently, which is why he pushed Greg away. But Mycroft didn’t promise to be by Greg’s side forever, and she did. Sometimes she feels like the only reason she’s staying is because she said she would. But isn’t that the whole point of marriage? That your vows help you keep that promise when things get hard?

But there’s hard, and then there’s well, this. Steph wipes sweat from her brow and continues running. Greg doesn’t love her anymore. That’s the simple fact of it. She’s hoping that when Greg’s injury gets better, when he’s climbed a bit out of the hole that he’s in, that he can love her again. But it’s painfully clear that he doesn’t love her now. And that hurts, someplace beneath her ribs. Or maybe that’s a side stitch from running. She presses her hand to her side. Yes, it’s a side stitch. She walks the rest of the way home.


	3. Chapter 3

Mycroft stares at his phone, which is sat atop the side table next to his wingback chair. He’s sipping whiskey, watching his fire, and re-reading the messages that Greg sent him on New Years’ Eve.

**Night Mike.**

**Please refrain from using nicknames.**

**Sorry. Call me tomorrow?**

**Drink a glass of water.**

**Will do.**

**Goodnight, Gregory.**

**__** _You say ‘Gregory’... to keep distant. From me._

The words ring like an accusation. And it’s true. Mycroft had kept his distance from Greg, refusing to let him move in when Greg had so desperately wanted to, and why? He remembers the night Greg woke up, when Mycroft had… there’s no other word for it, Mycroft had _prayed_ for Greg to wake up and to have his faculties intact.

Mycroft had confessed to an unconscious Greg that he’d been afraid of letting him get too close. That he’d been afraid of being hurt. And that he’d ultimately realized he was afraid of the wrong things, that it had been far worse to regret what might have been if he’d allowed himself to pursue a relationship with Greg than it would be to have opened up and be left heartbroken. And yet--

And yet when Greg had come to him and begged him to move in together, when Greg had said he _loved_ him, Mycroft had again frozen in fear. He’d been so afraid that Greg was speaking from a place of injury, of impulsiveness, that he’d regret anything he did with Mycroft, that he’d rejected Greg in a way which, on reflection, bordered on cruel. He’s played their conversation over and over in his mind, and he’s convinced that Greg had been earnest, that he’d genuinely meant it when he said, “you, now. Always.”

Mycroft closes his eyes. Greg had made himself vulnerable, and Mycroft had pulled back. Again. He opens his eyes and stares at his phone.

**I’m sorry.** He starts a text. Deletes it.

**When you were unconscious, I told you**

Deletes that, too.

**I don’t expect you to read this, but I**

**Now that I’ve had the opportunity to think on it**

He deletes, deletes, deletes. There’s nothing he can say. Nothing which will make it right. He’s hurt the man he--say it--loves. And there is no mending this particular hurt. He knows this, and yet still he tries to imagine the right thing to say to Greg, the thing which will help them go back to the way things were before.

Except there is no going back to before. Mycroft stares at the fire, watching sparks fly up the chimney the way he did on Christmas eve. Greg is injured. He may never recover fully. Mycroft was trying to put walls between himself and Greg when he offered him a live-in nurse and an aide to take him to therapy, but he was also being honest that Greg needs caretaking, and he is not a caretaker. He didn’t want to mislead Greg into thinking that he could provide things that he can’t. Things Stephanie can.

A wave of bitter jealousy washes over him. Greg has gone home, to the familiar. To the woman who cheated on him, a thing Mycroft cannot begin to fathom doing. If Greg were his, he could never, would never hurt him. Except he did. Perhaps Greg is better off with Stephanie. Greg is definitely better off with Stephanie. The thought of Greg with Stephanie turns his stomach. It cannot stand.

**I’m not asking for forgiveness. I don’t deserve it. But if you could give me just a few minutes of your time, I am asking you to listen and hear me out.**

He hovers with his finger over the “send” button. He’s not sure how he will follow up this message even if he sends it, so he deletes it, like he did all the others.

What he really wants is to see Greg face to face. He needs to see his body language, hear his intonation. He needs data. Mycroft abhors text messages for all that they strip away. He should call Greg. It’s just after eight. Not too late to call. And then, at least he could hear Greg’s voice. He hovers over Greg’s number in his phone. Takes a deep breath. Then he presses the call button.

The phone rings. And rings. 

“Hello. You have reached the voicemail of Greg Lestrade. Leave a message after the beep, ta.”

Mycroft hangs up. It pains him to hear Greg’s voice, clearly recorded before the accident. There’s a version of Greg preserved that no longer exists. And Mycroft doesn’t want to pour his heart out to that Greg’s answerphone. Greg will see the missed call. If he wants to speak to Mycroft, he will call him back. Of course, the odds are high he doesn’t want to speak to Mycroft. Mycroft wouldn’t want to speak to Greg, were their roles reversed. He tries hard to imagine himself in Greg’s place, not just rejected but suffering from aphasia. The physical limitations, he thinks he could handle. He knows Greg has weakness in his right hand and foot. But what would it be like to lose his erudition? To retain all his intelligence, but be reduced to communicating in broken fragments? To be dependent on someone who had betrayed him? He swallows. It would be hard. Brutally so. And he would be crushed, if Greg had rebuffed him the way that he himself had done. No, Greg will not call Mycroft back, even if he sees the missed call. It is on him to reach out.

He glances at the fire, turns it down. He reads the texts again.

**Happy New Year! I hope Anthea let you kiss her.**

Greg had been drunk when he’d written these messages. Mycroft had cringed when he’d first read them out of second hand embarrassment. Greg had exposed himself, revealed his true feelings, something Myroft, who kept his own close to his breast, scorned. 

Now, he realizes that Greg is a braver man, a better man, than he is. He doesn’t deserve someone like Greg. But he wants, oh, how he wants.

Mycroft’s phone rings. His heart leaps, hoping for Greg. He glances at his phone display. Sherlock. Ugh. He slides his thumb across the bar and answers.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Why isn’t Jaxon Reid in a black cell in Yemen?”

A very good question. “Because Greg would not approve of me taking such an action.”

“Greg?”

“Don’t play the idiot with me, Sherlock. You know his name.”

“I do. But I didn’t realize you two were on a first name basis.”

Blood. He’s slipping.

“Well, we are. Greg is a friend.”

“You don’t have friends, Mycroft. You have acquaintances. And colleagues. And fuck budies. Please tell me Lestrade isn’t a fuck buddy.”

“He is a friend,” Mycroft repeats.

“You’re fucking him.”

“I am not.”

“You want to fuck him, then.”

“He’s married.”

“To a wife that’s cheated on him twice.”

“I’m well aware.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“There is nothing going on.”

He hates the way that his brother can deduce him. He feels flayed open. Raw. 

“Since before he was assaulted, I assume. And now that he’s got a brain injury you’ve backed off, because you’ve decided he’s better off with that awful wife. He isn’t.”

“Sherlock,” he thinks again of their parents, of Sherlock deducing their father’s affair, which their mother knew of and had been ignoring. “Marriage is complicated. I would have hoped you’d have learned that by now. In times of crisis, people show their true colors, and Mrs Lestrade has been by his side since his injury.”

“Probably she feels guilty because she cheated.”

“I believe she genuinely loves him.”

Sherlock snorts. “Since when do you believe in love?”

“I’m not talking about romantic love, Sherlock. What the Lestrades have is pragmatic love. They’ve been together for many years, and now that they’ve experienced this tragedy, they are leaning on each other.”

“He doesn’t love her.”

Mycroft swallows. “I am confident he does.”

“He just doesn’t believe he deserves any better. Not that I’m implying you’re better, mind.”

Mycroft knows he isn’t better. Suspects he is worse. “Please rid yourself of this idea that I’m pursuing Inspector Lestrade.”

“So now we’re back to ‘Inspector Lestrade,’ are we? You really do want him.”

“I want what’s best for him.”

“Of course you do. You’re besotted with him.”

Mycroft squeezes the bridge of his nose.

“Unless you’ve decided not to pursue him because of his injury. Mycroft, I thought you of all people were capable of looking past that.”

He should be. He isn’t. “What Lestrade needs right now, while he recovers, is a friend.”

Sherlock sighs. “You’re probably right. Still. It’s obvious you want him. You might want to work on that, lest you provoke Mrs Lestrade into a fit of jealousy.”

“I trust you will not mention this to him as callously as you mentioned his wife’s infidelity.”

“So you’re admitting you want him.”

“Sherlock,” he warns. “I’ll have your word.”

“Fine. I won’t tell him. I won’t tell her, either.”

“Thank you. And now, I believe this conversation is over.” Mycroft disconnects the call.

He stares at his phone. Types another text.

**Sherlock suspects.**

He deletes it.


End file.
